After the agreed adjournment the remaining guests were shown to their rooms. For security’s sake, they were all put in the same hall, with several rooms between each other. Nymph and Arachne actually elected to wait outside their rooms and elected to wait outside the doors of their rooms until after their hosts left, Culicidae entered and quickly shut the door to her room without allowing anyone to follow. The less than cordial behavior of the queens was anticipated, the less than favorable remarks laced with dissent and often worded in a manner lacking in a family had Twilight and Flash glad they had the rest of the family elsewhere within the complex. Given her displayed nature Emerald was likely to try curling up with someone for comfort, the most likely candidates for this course of action were Spike and Chrysalis. Although, there was the very real chance Luna would insist on spending the night Violet, mostly because she adores children and would argue that she doesn’t really get to spend more time with any of them.
The fact the events were going so slow was a given, especially when you took the number of times the visiting queens “insisted” on looping the conversation. Frankly, all the princesses were surprised they even managed to get the business as far as they did up until then. The fact that after Spike suggested they get the queens situated in their respective rooms before dinner had two of said queens squabbling all through the journey to and up the stairs all the way to the stop at the designated hall, to the amusement of the third.
Twilight and Flash left their guests to get comfortable and headed back downstairs. The sight of Luna playing with Emerald was too cute for words, as they got closer the two heard Spike and Chrysalis comment about it being okay for Emerald to spend the night Luna. Celestia just stood to the side smiling at the whole thing, she waved Twilight and Flash over once she noticed them. Discord was off to the side, near Celestia, with a miniature “war room” in top-down view seemingly planning or reacting to some kind of conflict, Twilight rolled her eyes at Discord’s antics.
“So, what exactly did we miss?” Flash inquired.
“Not a whole lot,” said Celestia, “no more than the usual when my husband or foals of any kind are involved.”
“I’m kind of sorry our filly isn’t here,” said Twilight, “at the very least Violet would have a playmate. Although, she’s rather quiet for a foal her age.”
“Only if you go by pony standards,” said Chrysalis, “she’s just uncomfortable communicating verbally, she finds it too lacking.”
“Wait, she’s more talkative over the link? That’s something of note,” said Flash, already seeing Twilight writing down what they just heard in a pocket notebook with a purple cover.
“Not at the moment,” said Chrysalis, “she doesn’t like that she can’t communicate via the link, even though she knows why she’s not permitted during this time. She’s actually quite brilliant for her age, she just hasn’t gotten into the habit of sharing in a similar manner to some of her older sisters.”
“Why did you say it like that? There must be a reason,” said Twilight.
“According to Chrysalis,” said Spike, “while Emerald is physically silent, over the link she can be a bit of chatterbox with her genuine curiosity that is somehow properly tempered by her sense of caution.”
“Just last week she was babbling about what she thinks school must be like, I really don’t feel I’m the best one for talking about that. Also, her sisters have deliberately been withholding information regarding school from her. You may not realize this, Twilight, but the one she admires most outside of the hive is you. For some reason, she’s latched onto the excitement you have about learning, and school in particular, to the point she thinks it’s as magical a place as you make it out to be, it’s actually kind of adorable with how she’s been romanticizing a place she’s never actually been to. That said, she still doesn’t understand this fascination with books you and Novel seem to have.”
“You’re right, that is really cute,” said Twilight.
“Wait, why is she fixated on Twilight to such a degree?”
“Probably has something to do with the fact that Twilight is the greatest authority aside from Chrys she has regular contact with,” said Spike.
“Also the fact all of her older sisters insist on referring to Twilight by name,” said Chrysalis, “she just refers to the rest you by some overly simplified description.”
“Then what am I?” Discord inquired with curiosity, finally looking up from his playset.
“The silly looking thing with a funny voice,” said Chrysalis.
“Well, at least he’s memorable,” said Celestia.
“Celestia is the tall white mare with wings and a horn,” said Chrysalis, Discord and most of the assembled mares gave little giggles at that.
“Luna is the ‘dark blue mare with wings and a horn with a sparkly mane’, she thinks it’s pretty.” Luna just smiled at that while enjoying her time with the foal.
“Twilight's just called ‘Auntie Twilight’ and Cadance is just called ‘Auntie Cadance’ but she really hasn’t taken to learning the rest of your names.”
“So she hasn’t even learned any of our names, even mine,” said Rarity with mock indignation, “I probably spend more time with her than the rest of us, barring Chrys and Twilight that is.”
“Even so,” said Chrysalis, “for now you’ll just have to be content with being known as ‘the white mare with a pretty purple mane’ that likes dressing her up, which she’s indifferent about by the way.”
“Really,” said Rarity, “I make her look fabulous for a few minutes during our time together and she doesn’t even think of it as special.”
“Oh, she thinks of it as special. She just puts up with it because she knows it makes you happy, she just doesn’t want to ruin your fun.”
“It would be nice she would share that with me, I could make her an outfit we both enjoy.”
“Ooh, ooh, what about me?” Pinkie said with excitement.
“She calls you the ‘super happy pink mare’ and also wonders where you get all your energy,” said Chrysalis
“I’m not always happy,” said Pinkie in a more subdued voice.
“Even so, you are always seemingly happy when she sees you,” said Spike, “Chrys did mention that the identifiers Violet gives everyone are oversimplifications.”
“Rainbow Dash is just the ‘cyan mare with a rainbow mane’ and she wonders why you keep trying to get Dusk to do stuff.
“Hey,” said Rainbow, “she’s the most active of your primes, might as well have her get a bit more involved with some things because of that. Although, when I explained most pranks to her she came off as more than a bit of a buzzkill.”
Everyone just shook their heads before Chrysalis continued, “Fluttershy is the ‘nice yellow mare with wings and a pink mane’ she also wonders why you’re so jumpy.”
“Oh, well at least she thinks I’m nice.”
“The point Chrys is trying to make here is Emerald has very distinctive mindset, we don’t know if this will be present in all changelings with her classification or just an eccentricity she has for the time being.”
“We will once you two have some more foals,” said Twilight, “having more changelings with her classification will tell us for sure.”
“But that’s not for quite a ways off,” said Spike, “we still plan to wait a while longer before making a new brood.”
“It’s getting late, I suggest we take care of what we need to for the night and head to bed. Anyone who feels like it will feel a bit lonely under the current circumstances is free to take one of the empty rooms here at the castle.”
“Thank you for the invitation, darling,” said Rarity.
“I think I’ll be fine at my place, some of the animals are probably wondering why I wasn’t there to assist them for most of the day.”
“Et doesn’t feel lahke tha same widout tha rest o’ tha family aroun’,” said Applejack. The rest of Twilight’s friends voiced similar statements.
“I wish to spend the night with Violet Emerald,” said Luna, “I beseech her parents to permit this.”
“I don’t see any real issues with her spending the night with Luna,” said Chrysalis.
“Same here,” said Spike, “we know she’s going to remain safe in your care, Luna.”
“Well,” said Celestia, “I suppose with everything sorted out we should retire to our rooms.”
“We will,” said Twilight, “as soon as everyone who is going to be staying the night is sorted into their rooms.”
“Should only take a few minutes,” said Flash, “then we’re off to bed as well.” The task of getting everyone sorted into a room, minus Fluttershy, didn’t even take more than ten minutes, a little less than the time it took to run to Fluttershy’s. The only real issue, which was handled well enough by Celestia, was Discord’s parody of a nightly ritual.